Ok, this is going to sound like a plug for Amazon. Trust me, it is not. I just think Amazon Prime, the new program Amazon launched, may actually save you some money over the long run. If you buy books, dvd's or anything else that Amazon is attempting to push, the $79 a year charge isn't all that bad. Again, you have to rationalize the upfront fee and calculate how many items shipped in two days will get you to break even. I say eight purchases (of whatever) will be my break-even point. Over the course of the last year, though, I think I bought only four books through Amazon. And given that they were all over $25, the shipping was free anyway. I hope Amazon isn't thinking of ending that option in favor of this new program.

“East [Bengal] has already closed the doors to me… so I want to stay in West Bengal where I feel at home.”

Taslima Nasrin, the Bangladeshi writer who was banished and her books banned by conservative Muslims lives in Sweden but has applied for an Indian citizenship and wishes to live in West Bengal.

The Dart Center Ochberg Fellowship has been established by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma in order to build a cohort of journalists better prepared to report responsibly and credibly on violence and traumatic events, including crime, family violence, natural disasters and accidents, war, and genocide.

The Dart Center provides six or more expense-paid fellowships to mid-career journalists who want to apply knowledge of emotional trauma to improving their reporting of violent events.

Fellows will attend a two-day seminar on the role emotional trauma plays in coverage of violent events, then will have access to all events and speakers in the annual conference of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. The 2005 ISTSS conference will be held November 1-6, 2005, in Toronto.

Fellowships are open to: print and broadcast reporters, photographers, editors, and producers with at least five years of journalism experience.

Program information and application forms are available at the Dart Center web site.

Is this just narcissism?

Heather Champ's Tiny Photographers. Champ's images remind me a bit of David Levinthal‘s monumental portfolios.

The effective use of a macro lens, shallow depth of field, punchy colors and a story line created wholly by the audience is simply refreshing.